Digital Green in Ghana

About Us

Our Approach

Digital Green is a not for profit international

development organization that uses an
innovative digital platform for community
engagement to improve lives of rural
communities across South Asia and SubSaharan Africa. We partner with local public,
private and civil society organizations to share
knowledge on improved agricultural practices,
livelihoods, health, and nutrition, using locally
produced videos and human mediated
dissemination. In a controlled evaluation, the
approach was found to be 10 times more costeffective and uptake of new practices seven
times higher compared to traditional extension
services.1

We engage with and empower rural communities

to produce participatory localized videos,
leveraging pre-existing group structures to
disseminate these videos through human
mediation. These videos are of the community,
by the community and for the community. The
approach includes: (1) a participatory process
for video production on improved livelihood
practices, (2) a human-mediated learning
model for video dissemination and training,
(3) a hardware and software technology
platform for data management customized to
limited or intermittent Internet and electrical
grid connectivity, and (4) an iterative model to
progressively address the needs and interests of
the community with analytical tools.

Till date, we have produced over 2,800

videos in more than 20 languages, reached
3,000 villages and over 330,000 farmers.
We currently implement projects in seven
states in India and in select areas in Ethiopia,
Ghana, Mozambique and Tanzania in Africa in
partnership with over 20 partners.

Our data management software called Connect

Online | Connect Offline (COCO) and Analytics
dashboard suite customized to low resource
settings are used to collect and analyse near
real-time data on dissemination, adoption, and
community interest.

1 Gandhi, R., R. Veeraraghavan, K. Toyama and V. Ramprasad (2009). Digital Green: Participatory Video for Agricultural Extension, Information
Technologies for International Development, MIT Press. http://itidjournal.org/itid/article/view/322/145

Our Projects in Ghana

To test the feasibility and effectiveness of our approach in multiple geographies, we initiated work in West
Africa in Ghana in 2012. By working with government and non-profit extension systems, we aim to improve
livelihood opportunities, food security, as well as the nutrition and health status of poor rural households.
At present, we have reached 2,000 households through our agriculture-focused partnerships. In the
coming year, we will expand our operations to engage farmers on agronomic practices related to cash
and food crops, as well as reproductive, maternal and child health practices.

Upper West

Upper
East

Bolgatanga

Wa

Tamale

Northern

Volta
Brong Ahafo

Sunyani

Ashanti
Kumasi

Eastern

Africa Rice Partnership

Koforidua

Western
Central

Ho

Greater Accra
Accra

WCF Partnership
HFFG Partnership

Cape Coast
Sekondi

World Cocoa Foundation

Geography: 1,800 households, 52 communities,
three districts within Adansi North & South areas
and Ahafo Ano South, Ashanti region
We partnered with the World Cocoa Foundation
(WCF) in Ghana in 2012 to implement a
pilot project that promotes key agricultural
behaviors related to cocoa farming. This pilot
adapts the Digital Green approach to extend
2

WCFs agricultural interventions as part of the

Cocoa Livelihood Project (CLP). CLP focuses
on strengthening farmer groups by providing
them access to extension and credit through
community-based Business Service Centers
(BSCs). We are working with WCFs CLP in
three districts, where we provide training and
supportive supervision to WCF staff and Ghanaian
government cocoa community extension
agents (CEAs) and district-level Cocoa Board
(COCOBOD) staff on video production and

dissemination, quality assurance and monitoring

and evaluation.

Africa Rice

The pilot project embeds the Digital Green

approach with groups that received good
agricultural practices (GAP) trainings and
groups that did not. Existing farmer groups, each
comprising approximately 30 farmers, attend
disseminations conducted by CEAs and groupappointed local community facilitators (LCFs).
Till date, we have reached approximately 1,800
farmers of which approximately 85% adopted at
least one best practice. In total, 18 videos have
been produced on topics such as pest and weed
management, harvesting, post-harvest care and
storage. The partnership with WCF expanded to
two additional sites to effectively collaborate with
WCFs industry partners, Noble and Armajaro.

We have entered into a knowledge-based

partnership with the research group AfricaRice
to disseminate rice cultivation technologies
to farmers in the Ashanti and Volta regions in
Ghana. Africa Rice partnered with the Crop
Research Institute (CRI) working with the Ministry
of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) to strengthen the
capacities of farmer groups through participatory
learning and action research implementation.

Formative research and process evaluations show

a great demand among the farmer groups and
other community members for videos on cocoa
best practices. A cost-effectiveness study is also
being conducted in these areas.

Geography: 1,125 households, 15 communities,

three districts Kejebe, HoeHoe and Jasikan,
Volta region

CRI staff and MoFAs agriculture extension agents

(AEAs) were trained by our trainers on video
production and dissemination and are engaging
approximately 1,125 farmers with communitybased videos in the Volta region. Approximately
16 videos are being produced and disseminated
through these collaborations and are following
the cropping calendar of Ghanaian rice farmers.
These videos showcase agronomic best
practices associated with inland rice farming land
development.

Hope for Future Generations

Geography: 3,250 households, 20 communities
and 15 schools in Ajumako Enyan Essiam, Volta
region
We partnered with Hope for Future Generations
(HFFG) to implement a pilot project to promote
key sexual and reproductive health rights and
maternal, neonatal and child health practices in
the Ajumako Enyan Essiam District of the Central
Region. This pilot seeks to layer the Digital
Green approach with existing social groups. It
will reach out to beneficiary communities and
schools through three types of small community
self-empowerment groups (mummies clubs,
daddies clubs, youth clubs) as well as pupils in
select basic schools organized as School Health
Clubs. This collaboration will not only target direct
audiences such as pregnant and lactating women,

but also key household decision-makers such as

husbands and mother in-laws.
HFFG, a well-known health organization in Ghana,
has created a cadre of community mediators
within each community by working with the
Government-established, Ghana Health Services
(GHS). HFFG has also partnered with the Ghana
Education Service (GES) to increase sexual
and reproductive health awareness of youths in
schools. The three agencies - HFFG, GHS and
GES will work in tandem to produce and share
health-related videos to engaged communities.
Staff members from these three agencies have
been trained on video production and are
producing videos on topics such as the effects of
early sexual activity. Representatives of each of
the government agencies are considered subject
matter specialists for video content approval.